I love it when I find out something I thought I knew isn’t true.
It’s such a great story – Duane Allman dies crashing his motorcycle into a peach truck, and the boys in the band name the next album Eat a Peach. It’s got such perfect literary depth, too:
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I was a freshman in college when I read T.S. Eliot, and that whole “eat a peach” line was huge. So to think the good ol’ boys could play guitar like that, with those two driving drummers, and quote Eliot and ride their motorcycles until they died was such a romantic notion.
Turns out it’s just a story stoned college students tell one another. It wasn’t a peach truck. And it wasn’t Eliot.
Sigh.